Data centers employ various services (aka applications). Such services often demand readily available, reliable, and secure networks and other facilities, such as servers and storage. Highly available, redundant, and scalable data networks are particularly important for data centers that host business critical and mission critical services.
Data centers are used to provide computing services to one or more users such as business entities, etc. The data center may include computing elements such as server computers and storage systems that run one or more services (dozens and even hundreds of services are not uncommon). The data center workload at any given time reflects the amount of resources necessary to provide one or more services. The workload is helpful in adjusting the allocation of resources at any given time and in planning for future resource allocation planning.